


In Understanding, Find the Words That Make the Myth

by Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)



Series: Lies, Misdirection, and Terrible Truth [18]
Category: Mythology - Fandom, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: GFY, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-13
Updated: 2012-11-13
Packaged: 2017-11-18 14:23:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/562021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The battle is over, they've won. Loki's escaped again, vanishing with his friends, leaving them with a different alien war criminal, a freaked-out Clint, and a wreck of a battlefield to clean up. At least it's not Manhattan, and he doesn't have to repair his tower again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Understanding, Find the Words That Make the Myth

The battle is over, they've won. Loki's escaped again, vanishing with his friends, leaving them with a different alien war criminal, a freaked-out Clint, and a wreck of a battlefield to clean up. At least it's not Manhattan, and he doesn't have to repair his tower again.

_You are not dead yet. I won't allow it._

Tony can't get those words out of his head, and he doesn't know what she meant by them. He reads the after-action reports from the others, but they don't help. No one remembered Anat doing anything weird - well, other than apparently dissolving Chitauri with a glance, according to Clint.

There had been a strange sweep of ice on the field, probably Loki's doing, but no one could make sense of it, or the Chitauri which was partially trapped in it, with every bit of its blue blood bursting frozen from what passed for veins. Other than Loki was a vicious bastard, and that they already knew. Sick, vicious, and currently out-of-reach bastard.

_You are not dead yet._

That much was kinda stating the obvious, though he shies away from the thought that a moment before he'd heard those words, he might have been. Or nearly have been. He doesn't think about that, any more than he thinks about Afghanistan or Stane or one of any number of close calls. He's not dead, and that's what matters, not the number of times he's nearly died.

_I won't allow it._

It's those words he doesn't understand. Doesn't understand how she could possibly prevent him from dying if that's what's going to happen. And it will, eventually, though he has a few projects to look into preventing that. Projects he's not sure he's willing to share with anyone beyond the Avengers, and them only because he refuses to let go of the strange, dysfunctional, and possibly - probably - broken, morally gray, dangerous, and occasionally psychotic family he's built. Even if he has to find a way to keep them all alive forever.

He might even share it with Fury and Coulson; scratch that, definitely Coulson - it's Fury he's still not certain of. Fury lies, and stabs them in the back, and does whatever he thinks is right, and manipulates whoever he thinks he has to in order to get things done. Almost like a for-the-greater-good version of Loki, and that's a thought that is seriously disturbing, because hello, psychotic Norse god (alien, whatever).

But maybe accurate. Scary.

_I won't allow it._

Who is she that she thinks she can stop it? He's read the mythology - a bit more fragmented than stuff about Loki, but still findable - and he's read the story about her fighting death for her husband-brother. Another thought that weirds him out, but she didn't seem to be hauling around a husband the first time he met her, or any time since. Maybe that's the part of the myth that's made up. Which adds more questions, but he's not in a mood to follow them up unless they get him closer to an understanding of what she said to him.

He sets JARVIS to hunt down more mythology, and really, anything he can get on the cultures that gave rise to the mythology. Or is it the mythology gave rise to the culture? Maybe there's something there, but he shakes it away. There's knowledge out there that he doesn't have, and it might just give him another project or three to work on. Something to keep him from getting bored for another month or six.

_Even you cannot stop your own mortality._

Another set of words, and he's certain they have something to do with the more recent ones, and probably something to do with why she'd said she wouldn't allow him to die. He's going in circles now, trying to figure out the missing piece of the puzzle. Magic, probably, but without the basics on how that works, he can't find the answers. Which means he's going to have to talk to the neighborhood lunatic, and hope he doesn't end up dead or brain-washed or whatever in the process.

He doesn't even need JARVIS to hack anything to have a way of contacting Loki. And talking to the person he really doesn't want to talk to, because he doesn't know what she wants from him, or why she's taken any sort of interest in his continued living. Or if that's a good thing or not.

Tony stares at his phone at the number that's been there for months, and he's never quite been able to bring himself to delete. Even if he should, especially considering who it belongs to, and the fact that he's still with Pepper (almost two years now, and he keeps thinking that he should maybe do something about making it sorta of official).

Later. Tomorrow. He can call tomorrow, and see if he can't get some sort of answer out of Anat, or Loki, if either of them is even at the apartment the number is attached to. Or he can have Happy drive him over and ask them to their face, even if that's really not the most brilliant of ideas and he knows it will drive Rogers up the wall, and possibly give Fury another one of his headaches, and maybe it isn't such a bad idea after all. And it means that tonight he can pay attention to Pepper, and make her happy, and then he can come back here after talking to the insane trio tomorrow, and hide in his lab working on projects until Rogers and Fury calm down.

Yeah. It's a plan.


End file.
